Leading research institutions worldwide continue to leverage Dell EMC solutions to optimize HPC performance, driving cutting-edge research and innovation

At ISC17, Dell EMC is announcing an agreement to further democratize and advance HPC, as well as additions to its Ready Solutions portfolio that will help customers further optimize their HPC projects. Working with leading researchers and innovators worldwide, Dell EMC HPC solutions empower customers to make critical advances in industries such as research, life sciences and manufacturing.

Dell EMC and NVIDIA have expanded their collaboration by signing a new strategic agreement to include joint product development of new products and solutions that address the burgeoning workload and datacenter requirements, with GPU-accelerated solutions for HPC, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, Dell EMC will work with NVIDIA to support the new Volta architecture and intends to launch Volta-based solutions by the end of the year.

Dell EMC delivered systems also continue to earn recognition as industry leaders, with an increasing number of systems in the TOP500 and Green500 lists. Published twice annually, the TOP500 list shows the 500 most powerful commercially available computer systems in the world. The Green500 list provides a ranking of the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world. Multiple Dell EMC delivered systems appear on these lists, including:

The Cambridge Research Computing Service at the University of Cambridge is implementing a new $12M system aimed at addressing large scale High I/O data-intensive science cases. Wilkes-2, which appears at #100 on the TOP500 list and #5 on the Green500 list is the largest GPU system in the UK and the highest-ranked Dell EMC delivered system on the Green500 list. Peta4-KNL, #405 on the list, is the largest KNL system in the UK, and brings true petascale research computing within reach of all UK research groups and industries that wish to buy time on the system.

The recently-upgraded Stampede 2 system at Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is now at #12 on the TOP500 list and #32 on the Green500 list. It is the highest-ranked Dell EMC delivered system on the TOP500 list. The upgraded system includes the phased deployment of a ~18 petaflop system based on Dell EMC PowerEdge servers including Intel® Xeon® Phi processors. Additionally, Stampede 2 will double the peak performance, memory, storage capacity and bandwidth of Stampede 1. The last phase of the system will include integration of the upcoming 3D XPoint non volatile memory technology.

The Dell EMC HPC Innovation Lab, which appeared in the TOP500 list in November 2016 with 544 nodes with a mix of Intel Xeon and Intel Xeon Phi processors, now sits at #374 in the new TOP500 list and at #150 on the Green500 list. The lab also includes a 32-node Intel Xeon Scalable processor cluster with Intel Omni-path networking for testing and evaluation, as well as Dell C4130 servers with NVIDIA GPUs and Mellanox IB.

Dell EMC is also collaborating with CoolIT Systems to provide a factory-installed, direct contact CPU liquid cooling solution that will address power and cooling challenges for a wide range of customers. The cold plate solution, designed and manufactured by CoolIT Systems, will be available in a select Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th generation servers. It uses warm water to cool the CPUs, eliminating the need for chilled water and reducing cooling energy costs by up to 56 percent for data center infrastructure (cooling PUE). The solution also features increased rack density, enabling customers to deploy up to 23 percent more IT equipment per rack.¹

Top Researchers Continue to Choose Dell EMC HPC Solutions

The Jūlich Supercomputing Center is working with Dell EMC and Intel to deploy a supercomputer combo that is expected to be the first Cluster-Booster platform based on technology developed in the European Union (EU)’s DEEP and DEEP-ER research projects. This Cluster-Booster marks a step toward the implementation of modular supercomputing, a new paradigm directly reflecting the diversity of execution characteristics, found in modern simulation codes, in the architecture of the supercomputer. Instead of a homogenous design, the modular supercomputing paradigm enables optimal resource assignment to enable more scientists and engineers to solve their highly complex problems by simulations. The Booster module will be a 5PF cluster based on Dell EMC PowerEdge C6320p servers, connected with Dell EMC Networking H-series fabric based on Intel Omni-Path® technology.

The NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) at Goddard Space Flight Center needed a system that combines HPC and virtualization technologies in a private cloud designed for large-scale data analytics. To meet this need and alleviate some of the strain on Discover, their continually evolving HPC system, the NCCS launched its Advanced Data Analytics Platform (ADAPT) onsite private cloud. A green initiative, ADAPT was built largely from decommissioned HPC components, including hundreds of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers that came out of the Discover supercomputer as that system evolved to bring in new technologies. Scientists interact with the ADAPT team to provision resources and launch ephemeral VMs for “as needed” processing. The data-centric, virtual system approach significantly lowers the barriers and risks to organizations that require on-demand access to HPC solutions.

“Increasingly, deep learning is a strategic imperative for every major technology company, permeating every aspect of work. Specifically, artificial intelligence is being driven by leaps in GPU computing power that defy the slowdown in Moore’s law. The work we are doing to advance GPU computing alongside Dell EMC will empower AI developers as they race to build new frameworks to tackle some of the greatest challenges of our time.”

“Our leadership challenges us to do new, innovative things, which is where ADAPT came from. ADAPT enables researchers to uncover valuable information, which is why it is critical that the system performs well. The Dell servers, working as compute nodes inside ADAPT, have been real workhorses and have been reliable. That’s impressive, especially with the heat we run through the system.”

Paul Teich, principal analyst, TIRIAS Research

“Dell EMC is moving beyond its vertical HPC segment focus and strengthening its commitment to key HPC platform technologies. A new strategic agreement with NVIDIA for joint innovation in HPC, big data, and machine learning and collaborating with CoolIT Systems for factory-installed warm water cooling systems will accelerate Dell EMC’s mission to democratize HPC.”

“Dell EMC is proud of our work to help the research community and its customers capitalize on HPC, expanding it from a niche market to a broader audience, from departmental clusters to leadership-class systems. Our commitment to continuing to partner with strong leaders and push the envelope around HPC innovation is solid and growing, as evidenced by our market leadership, industry-leading products, and world-class customers and deployments.”

Dell EMC, a part of Dell Technologies, enables organizations to modernize, automate and transform their data center using industry-leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage and data protection technologies. This provides a trusted foundation for businesses to transform IT, through the creation of a hybrid cloud, and transform their business through the creation of cloud-native applications and big data solutions. Dell EMC services customers across 180 countries – including 98% of the Fortune 500 – with the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from edge to core to cloud.

¹ Based on Dell EMC internal analysis, April 2017, comparing a hypothetical air-cooled data center with a cooling PUE of 0.6 to a hybrid data center with a cooling PUE of 0.26. A PUE of 0.22 was assigned to all overhead not attributed to cooling. Individual operating costs and other factors will cause results to vary. RS Means industry standards cost basis was used to measure typical cooling infrastructure costs and determine projected savings.

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